1.Institutional scholarships/gifts/grants of $1.275M
2.Tuition waivers of $3.5M
3.Athletic scholarships of close to $24M ($21M of it was non-need based)
I expect she didn’t get an athletic scholarship money, but she could have received non-need based money from the $4.8M in #1-2 above
She wouldn’t wonder why she never received any congratulatory paperwork, or ever had an advisor reference her scholarship? “Honey, not only did you get into Stanford, but you earned a free ride!”? Yeah maybe, but that seems like a pointless lie easily uncovered.
Strangely, in their reporting the “0” column represents first time freshmen, and the $13,252 average non-need based scholarship award is for “Full-time Undergrad (Incl. Fresh.)”
17 students were awarded this category of institutional merit money in the 2019-2019 cycle.
@websensation “Sad thing is she possibly could have gotten in regularly.”
Except for students who presented false ACT/SAT scores (and not all of them did), that statement also applies to many of the students caught up in the Operation Varsity Blues scandal. They used their own academic records, but got a big boost (i.e. put in the student athlete recruit pile) from a fake athletic profile.
The “donations” were always about moving “could get in” (that small chance that “average excellent” students have that people liken to “winning the lottery”) into “almost certain to get in”.
Lets not forget the fact that Stanford did not get any money or know the money was coming at the time of admission decision. The donation was made in late April, 2017, well after the decision. Actually, Stanford said it was not aware of the additional $6m (beyond the $500k) till it was told by the media last week. When she was admitted even Singer himself was surprised because neither money nor coach support was provided for her.
So the girl was correct in claiming she got in on her own. She was swept up because her name happened to be among the three FBI provided Stanford being associated with Singer. The other two did not enroll.
Remember Zhao is someone who went to high school in England. It’s not the US, but it certainly mitigates against the “innocent from a different culture” angle. She would certainly have had many classmates who filled in their own college applications, the fact the she apparently didn’t know her own one was falsified doesn’t pass the smell test imo, even if she didn’t know her parents were paying someone off.
Similarly, buying lies from her parents about the funding? No, anyone these days with internet access will know where you get notified of funding from a school…and it’s not “daddy says”, it’s on an award or offer letter. If she’s making videos for YouTube, guaranteed she is active elsewhere on the net and social media. I think either she was actually offered something, and it clearly wasn’t need based, or as Petra says above, was just lying to make herself look better.
And yes many of the kids in the scandal “could” have got in anyway… but they didn’t compete on the same rules as the many others who also could have got in but got rejected anyway. I’m sure others would also have got in with imaginary sporting or other accomplishments added to their resumes.
^But that is different topic from what we were talking about here—the subject of what the schools should do about false information in application is another discussion. A few months ago there was also a debate here about whether the kids from Louisiana school who fabricated their stories should be expelled. As I recall none was.
I think that most widely held opinion on this board that Zhao got in with the help of big money and sports coach is just not correct. The fact that she was neither recruited nor interested in joining the sailing team showed that such made up credentials could not have played a crucial role in her acceptance, unlike the Louisiana kids stories. I am not saying that false information in the application does not warrant expulsion. Stanford had to single her out because it could not afford keeping someone on campus who was associated with Singer and continued to be a media focus.
This is nonsense. Suppose I apply to Stanford with excellent scores, recs and grades, like most other applicants. I also report that I’m a roller hockey player who was on the US National roller hockey team. At Stanford, roller hockey is an unimportant club sport, but nevertheless Stanford would legitimately give me a better chance at admission, just as they would if I reported I was a world-class birder or I’d personally built two houses for low-income people with my own hands or I was a published author. And Stanford should throw me out if they admitted me but I lied about my roller hockey, birding. house construction or writing.
If her sailing credential was so impressive, like on a National team and world-class sailer, the sailing coach would have been invited to evaluate, or even AOs could authenticate. Obviously, the sailing coach knew nothing about her application in this case.
Here are some facts: she was accepted as a un-hooked student at Stanford (without RA and development hook) and her stats were perfectly in line with other admits with humanities interests. Stanford was told she was a client of Singer and went back to look at her application. They found some false info and kicked her out.
The bottom line is schools like Stanford receive hundreds of reports on admitted students alleging that they made up things they had never done and awards they had never received. Does Stanford go back to investigate any of these to see if the AOs overlooked the apps? Probably not.
Rick Singer is a crook, no doubt about that. But even a crook is capable of doing some normal things sometimes. And the facts remain that prior to Zhao’s acceptance he just gave some good old fashioned college counseling and Zhao just got lucky to get a Stanford acceptance.
BTW, we still don’t know what exactly the false information was in her application. Stanford did not release the student’s name let alone her file, citing privacy.
We may not know exactly what the false info was, but we know that there was false info, hence the expulsion. And that’s the point, unless you’re suggesting people on this board should decide how much cheating is ok and how much isn’t?!
It’s disingenuous to suggest that something like a sporting accomplishment had no relevance on her application just because she wasn’t a recruited athlete.
“Yusi Zhao and two other people whose parents allegedly used the services of Newport Beach college consultant William “Rick” Singer received the letters… Target letters are used to inform a person that a grand jury is reviewing evidence that could be used to charge him or her with a crime“.
It also mentions the falsified application: “To help ensure Zhao was admitted to Stanford, Singer fashioned a fake profile that described her as a competitive sailor despite there being no indication she competed in the sport, people familiar with the case said.”
We will have to agree to disagree. For a holistic admissions process, anything that helps distinguish candidate A from candidate B is a plus for admissions.
That’s not what we were told by Admissions when we went to our Stanford visit. He specifically noted that being a varsity athlete-“even better, varsity captain” was something they loved to see in an applicant. He said accomplishments like that set them apart from every other generic really smart kid. Not the only thing that would put a student on their radar, but something they find impressive.
So by now we all agree that Zhao was an un-hooked admit to Stanford with a perhaps exaggerated sports credential. Lets consider a hypothetical case, just like her, an un-hooked middle class girl was also luckily admitted to Stanford. In her application she put down one of ECs being a varsity basketball player, but she also checked the box that she would not continue this EC in college.
One of her classmates in HS who saw her app reported to Stanford that the girl had only two practice sessions with junior varsity (which anyone could join) and she could barely dribble a basketball. Stanford confronted the girl about being a varsity athlete and she admitted she falsified her accomplishment because she didn’t think it was a big deal to omit “junior”.
Question: should Stanford expel her based on this false information in the application?
And what if Singer listed her as a one-time client?
If a college’s policy is to expel a student whose application was false then it should expel. That may not be the same as what you consider appropriate punishment, but that’s not the relevant issue here.